The following Dodgers have been smited by the JDK for their crimes against Jam:
All the girls! for picking on the JDK and damaging his already delicate self esteem!
The Basserd Who Nicked Copper's Stuff For the offense of nicking Copper's stuff. You are a tw*t, whoever you are and we all hope you get run over by a tram in Nottingham. Or Liverpool. Or whereever else they have trams!
Copper For the crime of playing with her Wii instead of her Jammie pals!
So I spent most of New Year's day vegging in front of the telly. As a consequence, I watched a couple of movies:
The Fantsatic Mr Fox: I wasn't sure If I was going to like this. It's based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name, which I read and loved as a kid. Turns out, the movie was a little bit awesome! It had a great cast, including geoige Clooney, Michael Gambon and the mighty Bill Murray, and felt quite a lot like a Coen Brother movie. Only with a 'proper' ending that Ben would have approved of. But then, Ben probably wouldn't approve of the talking animals.
The Dark Crystal: The classic Jim Henson movie. Except it was a bit rubbish. I'd never seen it before. The story was a bit rubbish. Most of the puppets were really good, execept for the two main characters which looked like plucked Fraggles.
Fortunately, Henson went on to make Labyrinth, which was awesome!
Then a couple of days later, I finally got round to watching Gran Torino. Since I'm probably the only person here who hadn't seen it yet, I'll just go on record as saying that it was every bit as good as everyone says it is! Clint Eastwood rocks!
Susan and I devoted 3hrs to Dances with Wolves the other night. I had only seen it once, when it first came out on video. Costner's direction was great and the soundtrack worked really well. The performances were solid and the script not bad at all - worth a revisit!
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I'll take arrogance and the inevitable hubris over self-doubt and lack of confidence.
"Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face" - Mike Tyson
Susan and I devoted 3hrs to Dances with Wolves the other night. I had only seen it once, when it first came out on video. Costner's direction was great and the soundtrack worked really well. The performances were solid and the script not bad at all - worth a revisit!
I thought it was one of the dullest flicks I ever slept through 20 years ago...Maybe I just need someone more exciting to watch it with, huh?...
Yesterday was a movie marathon...MIBII followed by both Ice Age movies...Good stuff......Ben
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"It must be mounted on a tripod!...It must be mounted on a tripod!" - Cmdr. Frederick Mohr
The Dark Crystal is a staple of my childhood! How dare you hate on it!!!!
We watched Get Him To the Greek - a Russel Brand vehicle that was basically just an hour and a half of Russell Brand being Russell Brand. It was mildly amusing.
I also finally watched Inception, which was pretty good, if a bit confusing. I understand that was kind of the point, but there were a lot of moments I just didn't follow. Overall, worth a watch.
Because I'm a sucker for spoof films, I watched Vampires Suck (it's a spoof on Twilight) and having seen the Twilight movies (don't judge) I thought it was hilariously on point.
The Dark Crystal is a staple of my childhood! How dare you hate on it!!!!
Hate is a strong word. It's not like it was Grease or Dirty Effin' Dancing. Now those movies, I hate. The Dark Crystal, I just didn't like.
I was expecting to like it. I really wanted to. I think it's one of those movies that's better when viewed through nostalgic eyes. I tried. It was just beyond my ability to like it! Sorry.
-- Edited by ddvmor on Monday 10th of January 2011 03:50:52 PM
I watched "The Enforcer" last night (no, not that one, the original from 1951)...I expected the normal '50's potboiler since it's not heralded as a Bogart classic, but was pleasantly surprised by strong performances from not only Bogart, but the supporting cast...Zero Mostel and Bob Steele were superb in their roles and writing and direct were good as well...
Definitely worth a look......Ben
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"It must be mounted on a tripod!...It must be mounted on a tripod!" - Cmdr. Frederick Mohr
I'd enjoy Simon Pegg reading the phone book. But that's just me ;)
I had the extreme misfortune of being forced to sit through Knight and Day - it's a Cameron Diaz/Tom Cruise fail. fail fail fail fail fail. I may not ever forgive Kevin for making me watch it.
It was so bad I can't believe it even got made, and while I have no love for Tom Cruise or Cameron Diaz, they're pretty big names to be tied to such trash. My only guess was that it was a bet, and the penalty for losing was making this film.
Utterly brilliant and equally, utterly horrific. Danny Boyle certainly didn't pull any punches when he wanted to make a point in this one. Suprisingly funny, wonderfully engrossing and, most amazingly of all, James Franco is actually very good in it.
Considering most of the movie is one man in a hole, it's suprisngly how fast paced and tense it is. Really would recommend it ... although if you're squeamish you'll definitely need something to hide behind at one point.
This weekend I saw Up In The Air starring the ever dependable George Clooney and a surprisingly rubbish Anna Kendrick, who, according to her IMDB page, won a bunch of awards for her stage work but, in this, gave about as good a performance as an empty supermarket brand crisp packet.
The film is amusing enough, treading some of the same thematic ground as Badman, but rather than being a sharp, intelligent black comedy with a clever twist at the end, skirts dangerously close to fatuous Romantic Comedy territory. Not my favourite movie of the year. Especially considering both Star Wars and Batman were on at the weekend!
Percy Jackson was drivel. The cast was actually pretty decent, but the story sucked sweaty monkey's balls. I'm not even sure why I watched it to the end.
Battle for Terra was dull and derivative. Think 'budget Avatar with extra dullness'. It was based on a short movie that I saw a few years agio and enjoyed, but expanding it to a full feature was a bad idea. I watched this to the end as well, in the hope that the big battle scene at the end would save it. It did not.
Pandorum... well... I switched it off and deleted it from my PVR after the first half an hour or so. Pretty much when the cannibal mutants turned up.